Assessment of the state of a forest road network as a basis for making a program of forest management unit opening

Abstract

The planning of a forest road network is preceded by a detailed analysis of the current qualitative and quantitative state of forest roads, and above all, the determination of their spatial layout. This paper presents a categorization and assessment of the state of the existing roads in the FMUs "Zeljin" and "Bukovik II" and defining of the parts of management units with insufficiently developed networks of forest roads. The identification of unopened and insufficiently opened parts of management units was performed on the basis of density of a forest road network by departments and using a fishnet with 500 x 500 m cell dimensions and buffer zones of different widths around forest roads. The absolute density of a forest road network in the FMU "Zeljin" is 18.62 m/ha and in the FMU "Bukovik II" 12.03 m/ha. After placing buffer zones around forest roads, it was found that in the FMU "Zeljin" over 56% of the area is covered by the zone ranging from 0 to 200 m, while in the FMU "Bukovik II" this zone covers 48% of the area.